If you're lucky enough to be anything like me, then you probably have trouble finding time in your exciting, fast-paced, sports-themed life to both play basketball and work out that shapeless mound of quivering flesh you call a stomach. Well, if that's been a problem for you, then consider the problem solved, thanks to the revolutionary and slightly insane Absolo machine.

How could this possibly fail?

The official Web site says that Absolo is "Rewriting Abdominal History." And the author of that nonsense statement couldn't be more correct. It's almost as if the Abdominal War of Independence and the Abs Battle of 1629 never even happened. Absolo combines the ab-blasting effort of "the situp" with the joy of throwing a ball into a kinda sorta basket/box/thingie/whatever. Oh, and let's not forget the all-important third ingredient in this radical new core workout: FUN!

According to the product brochure, "Absolo training is making traditional abdominal exercises obsolete." This means you can look forward to future visits to local museums where photos and maybe even grainy, black-and-white video of people doing crunches will be displayed next to exhibits of dinosaur bones and the Model-T. My only beef with the Absolo -- other than the $1,300 price tag -- is that after a few minutes of further chiseling my glistening six pack, I'd expect it to spit out a bunch of tickets I could redeem for an Atomic Super Bounce Ball, a Pirate Hook Finger Puppet or, if I'm really lucky, the Amazing Spiderman With Blowup Action! Sadly, the only thing this machine will give you are abs that can deflect bullets.

It IS innovative. My son innovated the same game with his loft and a blanket. And then threw about 2,756 matchbox cars. And then he realized it was stupid, and his room is still littered with 2,843 cars (if you're a parent, you'll understand how the number grows via increasing entropy).

If that were MY machine, the back section would be refrigerated and it would hold cans of beer. I would need just to lift my head to have a beer shoot out at me. Then I could return to my prone NBA viewing position.